Cheating and plagiarism are common academic misconducts that can result in suspension, probation or expulsion. Students cheat due to pressure to succeed and use technology to store or share information. Plagiarism is difficult to detect and can occur in various forms. Some professors address the issue by having students write a large amount of material at the beginning of the semester. Plagiarism continues to be a problem in professional fields such as journalism.
Deception and plagiarism are common forms of academic misconduct. Cheating is a more general term that can cover a wide range of offenses, including plagiarism, but it also refers specifically to attempting to use external materials to answer questions on an exam or copy from another student’s test. Plagiarism refers to the specific act of someone presenting another person’s work as their own. Plagiarism can occur in the academic or professional world and is sometimes considered unintentional. Both cheating and plagiarism are considered serious violations of codes of conduct and can result in academic suspension, probation or expulsion.
Students engage in cheating at all levels of education, from elementary school to college. While many students cheat because they haven’t studied for an exam, the pressure to succeed has driven many hardworking students to use cheat sheets on important tests. Some students may be pressured or coerced into showing others their exam or giving cues for correct answers. As more technology has entered the classroom, students are using smartphones, calculators, and other devices to store or share information. In the United States, several teachers have been found to be involved in cheating scandals, in hopes of boosting their students’ standardized test scores.
Plagiarism can be a more subtle violation of academic rules and is often difficult to detect. The simplest form of plagiarism would be a student copying directly from an encyclopedia or Internet site and then turning the article or essay into their own work. Another example would be a girl or boy writing a document to give to her or her partner. While this is original work, it is not done by the student and is still considered against the rules. Other students can buy the work online or pay someone else to do the work for them.
Some college professors attempt to address the problems of cheating and plagiarism by having the class write a large amount of material at the beginning of the semester so they can learn about each student’s individual style before assigning more important work. This makes it easier for the instructor to detect plagiarized work, but takes more time for both the student and the teacher. If an instructor discovers a student engaging in cheating and plagiarism, she can deal directly with the student or report the incident for review by an academic review board.
Plagiarism continues to be a problem beyond graduation. Any writing profession faces a lack of attribution and outright content theft. Fields such as journalism have developed their own ethics and standards to address this issue. Despite this, writers in the public and private spheres continue to be found to have taken material from earlier works without giving proper credit.
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